Another Unintended Consequence of School Accountability

The negative effects of standardized-exam-based school accountability, what might be gently termed unintended consequences if they weren't both so nefarious and so plainly evident as to think they might indeed not be unintended, are almost too numerous to count:

-- Narrowing of the classroom curriculum to the accountable (i.e., tested) subject areas;
-- Reduction in time spent on art, music, gym, and even the sciences;
-- Teaching to the test;
-- Reduced time spent on teaching approaches that foster depth of exploration, creativity, passion, inquisitiveness, etc., and that deaden education or the notion of knowledge for knowledge's sake;
-- Repetitive practice testing that further reduce children's interest in school and education;
-- Increased test pressure and anxiety among young children;
-- Focus on "bubble children" with attendant loss of attention to high-end and low-end performers;
-- Improper coaching and outright cheating by teachers and/or school administrators;
-- Reclassifying low achievers as learning disabled so their scores will not count against the school;
-- Altering school nutrition programs on testing days (evidence for this was found in Virginia) to increase the likelihood students would do well on the exams;
-- Suspension of low achievers during the test cycle to alter favorably the school's testing pool.

As if all of those were not reason enough to question whether the negative effects of school accountability outweigh the positive ones (if any such exist), a June 2010 study (viewable as HTML here and downloadable as a .pdf by searching on "Figlio accountability teacher mobility") from the Urban Institute and the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) has shed light on yet another negative impact of accountability: teachers fleeing schools with failing letter grades.

Based on data at the student and teacher level from Florida since 2002, where accountability systems include letter grades for schools ranging from "A" to "F," researchers Li Feng, David Figlio, and Tim Sass analyzed the impact of a sudden change (in 2002) in Florida's criteria for school assessment that resulted in roughly half of the state's schools receiving what they term an "accountability shock," a grade either higher or lower than they would have received under the pre-2000 school assessment criteria. What they found speaks volumes regarding what state school administrations might term self-fulfilling prophecies:

"Teachers in schools who unexpectedly receive a grade of "F" are over 40 percent more likely to leave their school and are nearly 70 percent more likely to move to another school in the same district than are teachers in schools that did not receive an accountability shock." They also found that "...downward accountability shocks lead to an increase in the quality of teachers who leave."

In other words, teachers whose schools received an "F" saw the handwriting on the wall and began bailing out at a statistically significantly (at the 99.99% level) higher rate of turnover than at other schools, even those unexpectedly downgraded to a "D." Furthermore, the quality of the teachers who moved was higher than the general level of teachers who moved from/to other parts of the system. An "F' grade triggered teacher departure, more likely by the better teachers in those schools as measured, regrettably, by the results of those same standardized exams. Thus, a self-fulfilling prophecy: bad school, high teacher turnover, good teachers leaving = worse school, and the cycle is primed to spiral toward closure short of a major intervention.

Li, Figlio, and Sass do not address whether the impact of school accountability on curriculum -- the restrictions on their classroom creativity and teaching styles and the deadening and demeaning focus on drill and test prep -- add further to teacher mobility or departure from the profession altogether. However, their conclusions certainly confirm what intuition would suggest. That's one reason why major corporations facing bankruptcy or even merger will often pay bonuses or premiums to employees who are willing to stay thorough to the end of those processes.

Given the growing list of the negative effects of school accountability, both anecdotal and research-based, one might think that those responsible for these policies would take a step back, pause for a reassessment. But perhaps all of this is nothing more than a bit of acceptable collateral damage resulting from another agenda.

NBC's New Education Show: Is It Charity Porn?

“[We] crisscrossed the country this past summer and team[ed] with local communities to renovate seven rundown schools in Los Angeles and rural Needles, California; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Nashville and Detroit. Some of these schools hadn’t been maintained for decades, and lacked even basic needs like toilets and working lights….[We] were humbled by the overwhelming community support we found throughout our journey as we poured millions of dollars into new school facilities. With the help of our sponsors…we helped these seven worn-out schools once again stand tall.”

Sounds like a great story, a program reminiscent of President Carter’s Habitat for Humanity. Who wouldn’t want to see charitable efforts like this going to help out communities and their schools during tough economic times? Almost brings a tear to the eye.

Unfortunately, this isn’t about charity, and only barely about good works. Instead, echoing arguments labeling the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" as "poverty porn," this looks to be the latest example of American television's version -- “charity porn" -- shamelessly making big bucks off the backs of the less fortunate, and creating a sort of mass-media voyeurism by wallowing in other people’s misfortunes.

The individual quoted above is Jacob Soboroff, posing as an “education contributor” in yesterday’s HuffingtonPost. In point of fact, HuffPost has given him a nice featured space for free advertising. Mr. Soboroff is identified as the Co-Host of NBC’s upcoming new reality show, “School Pride.” That’s right, it’s a show perfectly attuned to NBC’s increasingly absurd “Education Nation” concept, one in which NBC and its “sponsors” helicopter into certain perilously ravaged school districts in order to save the local community by refurbishing or rebuilding one of their schools.

Mr. Soboroff’s HuffPost biography says he is “part of the team working to transform America’s education system” and describes him as a former “advance man” for Michael Bloomberg. His website adds that he and his co-hosts are doing this in order to “put a spotlight on the importance of education.” Something like “The Biggest Loser” puts a spotlight on the importance of weight control, apparently.

It hasn’t been bad enough to turn house building for unfortunate people into “feel good” entertainment for couch potatoes, or to watch horribly overweight people become “heroes” in their struggle to save themselves from early death. Now we get to watch the salvaging of children’s education as entertainment, with the help of the show’s “sponsors.” You can bet there’ll be no shortage of outrage at how “they” (the politicians? The unions?) ever let the schools get to this condition, and plenty of tears shed in gratitude for NBC’s deus ex machina beneficence.

The intention is just fine -- who could possibly oppose seeing a decrepit school building restored and modernized -- but the approach is (for me, at least) sickening. The Jewish philosopher Maimonides once explained that an anonymous gift is “’a commandment fulfilled for its own sake,’ rather than one done in order to obtain honor.” He doubtless could never have imagined that acts of charity could be performed in order to entertain the masses and make a profit.

The series premieres tomorrow evening (Friday, October 15) at 8:00 pm EST.

My email from Klein: instead of reducing class size, he'd rather end seat time

Check out my email to Joel Klein below and his canned reply.

The message was sent through the NYC "take action" page" of the "Waiting for Superman" website, but I considerably tailored it to include the real issues involved in supporting great (or even good) teachers, involving reducing class size, rather than spending money on merit pay and the other bogus ways in which the corporate reformers want to waste our taxpayer funds. In national surveys, teachers overwhelmingly support lowering class size as the most effective way to improve the quality of education, over increasing their salary, merit pay or more professional development -- at rates over 95%. Of course, Klein doesn't respond to that suggestion at all.

Instead, he responds again pushing merit pay, and says that the mayor is eliminating "the current practice of awarding tenure to teachers based on seniority" which makes no sense, since tenure was never awarded based on seniority. Instead, he writes, tenure will be granted "only to teachers who have demonstrated two consecutive years of significant gains in student achievement" meaning value-added test scores -- which experts say is a highly unreliable way to evaluate their performance. See this recent study, for one.

Also, check out Klein's comments about how he's pushing to end "seat time" (meaning requiring that students actually attend school) and expanding online instruction -- as though either one of these proposals has anything to do with supporting "great teachers" Instead, both are likely to further degrade the quality of education in this city.

From: leonie@att.net [mailto:leonie@att.net]

Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 12:13 AM

Subject: What are you doing to support great teachers?

Dear The Honorable Klein:

As a member of our community, I am concerned about the future of our children and their education. I know that fixing our schools is a complex problem. But I also know that the most critical solution to this problem is making sure that we have effective teachers which will require reducing class size.

Every student deserves a great teacher. Likewise, teachers deserve the encouragement, support and training that they need to be more effective. And the best way to attract and retrain teachers in our schools is to reduce class size.

I urge you to make teacher effectiveness a top priority by taking the following actions:

1. Invest in the classroom, rather than spending even more money on testing, data analysis and out of classroom positions.

2. Support teachers by respecting their views about how to make them more effective -- reduce class size.

3. Evaluate teachers using several factors - such as classroom observations and parent input, but merit pay is a waste of money and does not benefit our kids.

I look forward to hearing what you are doing to support great teachers.

Sincerely,

Leonie Haimson, 212-674-7320

-----Original Message-----

From: Klein Joel I. [mailto:JKlein@schools.nyc.gov]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 10:36 AM
To: leonie@att.net
Subject: RE: What are you doing to support great teachers?

Dear Ms. Haimson:

Thank you for your recent e-mail concerning the recruitment, retention, support, and evaluation of great teachers.

We agree that every student deserves a great teacher, and really, teachers are the heroes every day in our school system. If we are going to meet our goal to ensure that every child who graduates high school is ready to start college or their careers, we need to work together to step up to this challenge . We feel that by rewarding and supporting teachers who make a real difference and helping developing teachers get better, we will build upon the improvements we have made over the last eight years and give New York City students the future they deserve.

To that end, Mayor Bloomberg recently announced that he would eliminate the current practice of awarding tenure to teachers based on seniority, and instead, provide tenure only to teachers who have demonstrated two consecutive years of significant gains in student achievement. Teachers who do not earn tenure will be provided additional support and training, and those who are ineffective will be removed from the classroom.

Additionally, New York City recently received a $36 million grant from the United States Department of Education as part of the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), which we will use to provide additional pay for "master teachers" and "turnaround teachers" who agree to be placed in low-performing schools.

In addition, we are working to incorporate technology into our classrooms in order to empower our teachers with the tools they need to teach our students in the 21st Century. Instead of lecturing at a class, teachers can use technology to work with small groups of students in their classes and tailor instruction to their individual needs. The Department of Education is also looking to end State-required "seat time," which mandates that all students spend a certain number of hours in their seats for every subject they take - if one student is progressing faster, why hold them back? If another one is not ready to move on, why force them? By ending seat time and incorporating individualized instruction, students will be able to advance academically while others are still mastering a particular subject.

We appreciate your input. Thank you again for writing to us, and for your advocacy on behalf of New York City's public school students.

Sincerely,

Joel I. Klein, Chancellor

Pre-Rhee and Post-Rhee

For those of you who believe that Michelle Rhee’s resignation today will hurt the achievement gains experienced by the DC school system; take a look at these charts (click to enlarge), with DC NAEP scores from 2003-2009.

It appears that DC schools were improving in terms of test scores at about the same rate pre-Rhee (before 2007) than after she got there, in every subject except 8th grade reading, where the improvement was greater before. (The source for these charts is the Rutgers report released today on mayoral control ).

Of course how much of this is due to her or her predecessors' educational reforms and how much to other factors (eg gentrification) is hard to discern. And many of Rhee's policies, such as IMPACT, the new teacher evaluation system, really won’t have show an effect until the next few years, if they are ever fully implemented.

A chat with the oligarchy of corporate education reform

Check out this from "Aunty Broad", one of our friends in Seattle: the education oligarchy (Rhee, Broad, Bloomberg, KIPP and Kopp) "should be cloned because they are so smart." More brilliant exposes from Aunty Broad are here.

Too little and much too late, the Times finally reports on the state test score scandal

In yesterday’s front page story, entitled "On NY School Tests, Warning Signs Ignored," the NY Times' account of the state test score scandal left its own deficient reporting conveniently off the hook.

Anyone who was paying attention knew at least as far back as 2007 that there was rampant test score inflation, primarily through articles by Erin Einhorn and other reporters at the Daily News. These articles, which themselves relied on analyses from testing experts like Fred Smith, revealed that the test score inflation started as early as 2002, with questions and scoring on the state exams becoming easier over time.

See this 2007 article on our blog by Steve Koss, relating the ingenious experiment done by Einhorn in which she gave the 2002 and 2005 math tests to the same bunch of children, with the results showing that the 2005 exam was much simpler, a fact also reflected in the changing "P" values of the questions. Or this follow-up Einhorn article, where leading testing experts called for an independent audit, which of course did not occur until three years later.

Where was the NY Times amidst all these revelations? Absolutely nowhere. Even now, the Times article omits any mention of the Daily News’ earlier exposes – which brought attention to this issue to the wider public – and instead recounts as somehow meaningful that a few individuals who supposedly had doubts about the apparent rise in test scores, like Pedro Noguera and Kathleen Cashin, didn’t directly mention them to Klein– as though he might otherwise not have noticed the evidence that was splashed all over the Daily News!

The article also offers a rather irrelevant story, relating how Joel Klein earnestly tried to convince the state to change its scoring system to use a value-added method instead, as though that would have addressed any of the problems regarding the score inflation. In fact, that might have made things worse, as indicated by the way in which the inflation led to 84% of all NYC elementary and middle schools receiving "A" last year, based primarily on the value-added method, falling precipitously to only 25% this year, when the state decided to reset the cut scores.

The article also gives Regent Merryl Tisch a pass, letting her have the last word, saying “We came in here saying we have to stop lying to our kids,” without mentioning that throughout the test score inflation period, she was Deputy Chancellor of the Regents, and yet reliably supported Bloomberg and Klein's claims of great improvement.

The Times itself had plenty of reason to know about concerns about the state test score inflation throughout this period but not only failed to report on it, but generally toed the company line.

On August 4, 2009, at the very moment when Bloomberg was pressing for the extension of mayoral control of the schools, and two years following the Daily news exposes, the Times published a credulous story that recounted the steep increase in state test scores and the apparent narrowing of the achievement gap, including this quote from Joel Klein:

“Mr. Klein, for his part, said he was confident that rising scores reflected real improvements. “No matter how you look at them,” he said, “the picture is one that shows that the city is making dramatic progress.”

In the article , Klein put more emphasis on the apparent rise in proficiency levels rather than scores, “saying that the pass-rate was the more critical measure because it indicated proficiency, an important gateway to success…Our job is to get all kids to basic proficiency and then continue to move them forward, and I think we can do that.”

Now, of course, Klein emphasizes the higher scale scores on the state tests, since the reported proficiency levels have dropped so dramatically.

To the degree that the Aug. 2009 Times article expressed any doubts about NYC's dramatic rise in test scores, it was only the possibility that the drive towards high-stakes accountability had led to excessive test prep-- not any of the overwhelming evidence that the tests were simply and the scoring more lenient.

Indeed, yesterday's article focused on the same set of concerns -- excessive test prep, the public release of prior exams, and the limited number of questions on the exams -- rather than any of the more damning findings, showing how the state had rigged the results with easier questions as well as lower cut scores, both of which would directly implicate the state in the fraudulent outcome.

As I wrote in August 2009 to the Times editor, Ian Trontz:

“… there are many prominent administrators, researchers, teachers and principals who believe strongly that there has been rampant state test score inflation in recent years. Not only are huge jumps in the scores occurring in nearly all districts and in all grades– the middle grade increases last year were especially unprecedented -- but as has been widely reported in the Daily News and elsewhere, the cut scores have been lowered each year. To leave this out of your story seems negligent at best, especially given the room and the time your reporter had to expound on this issue.”

I also pointed out that the article had wrongly attributed gains to Bloomberg/Klein on the NAEPs by giving them credit for the increase in test scores since 2002, even though their reforms had not begun until 2003. Here is how Trontz responded to this point:

"We do not, however, think that your email points out any inaccuracies. It is not incorrect to say that fourth grade reading scores rose after the mayor took over. You are correct that some of the biggest gains occurred before his major reforms took effect, but we are not incorrect."

I concluded at the time:

“Given the evident bias of this article, it appears clear that the Times has been captured by the Bloomberg/Klein PR machine, and can no longer be trusted to provide objective analysis of their education record."

Shortly afterward, Wayne Barrett wrote about the controversy in the Village Voice,

"The Times front page piece last week -- headlined "Gains on Tests in New York Schools Don't Silence Critics" -- failed to quote any real critics, but gave Klein six self-promoting paragraphs. It did bury a single questioning quote from two academics not known as critics of the test scores in the thirty-fourth paragraph, but the top of the story trumpeted success scores that would have silenced any critic. If, that is, they were true."

Two days after the NY Times article ran, on August 6, the NY State Senate voted to renew mayoral control without any checks and balances, essentially allowing Bloomberg to retain his stranglehold over our schools. One of the few Senators who voted against the renewal, Sen. Carl Kruger, argued that the achievement gains claimed by Bloomberg and Klein would soon be found to be fraudulent.

In response, the Daily News editorial page, as Bloomberg-sycophantic as all the other NYC major dailies, argued vociferously against Kruger's claims. In the piece, the News editors referenced the recent NY Times article (since they could not cite the far more explosive reporting of its own staff ):

“Good luck with that. He'll sooner find Sasquatch under Chancellor Joel Klein's desk. The New York Times double-checked test results and concluded this week that they showed "a steady march upward."

Indeed, Sasquatch was hiding in plain sight under Klein’s desk all along.

Just a few days after the Senate vote, on August 11, 2009, Meredith Kolodner of the Daily News pointed out that the cut scores had been set so low on the 2009 exams that a sixth grade student could pass the ELA just by randomly guessing, while 7^th graders had to get just one extra question right to pass. At Gotham Schools, Diana Senechal tried taking the exams herself and confirmed that in the 5^th grade ELA, 6^th grade math, and 7^th grade ELA exams, a student could indeed achieve a level 2 through random guessing .

What’s most scary is that according to the latest Times article, the state is now apparently going to keep the questions on the exams secret forever, supposedly to ensure that they can keep their difficulty level stable -- to guard against excessive test prep using old tests.

So in future, it will be impossible for another reporter like the intrepid Einhorn to test the same bunch of kids with exams from two separate years, to prove how much easier they have become. Or for any parent to examine how flawed the questions may be. (Remember Brownie the Cow, the absurd questions on the 2006 4^th grade ELA exam?) As though keeping the questions secret is the only method that can be used to keep standardized exams stable over time!

Meanwhile, companies like the College Board manage to release the SATs each year, and still are able to equate them, by holding back the ungraded questions (what the Times article calls “field test questions”). Why that could not occur in the case of the NY State exams is never explained by the article.

Sorry, NY Times, this article is too little and too late. Years before, when Bloomberg was pushing to retain unilateral control over our schools based upon these inflated test scores, the paper of record owed it to its readers to inform them of these issues, and yet utterly failed.

(See my critique at the time of their August 2009 article, NY Times falls in line with the Bloomberg PR spin control; and the response from Times editor, Ian Trontz: The NY Times response, and my reply.)

Sabrina Stevens Shupe on the CRAP

Check out the Sublime Sabrina Stevens Shupe on the CRAP we have been overwhelmed with in the past few months, being shoveled out by the likes of Education Nation, Waiting for Superman, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates and others, as in this Manifesto. For another great critique, of the latest load of CRAP, see Valerie Strauss.

CRAP means Corporate Reform Action Pack. For the full entry, Sabrina's full entry is at her terrific blog, Failing Schools. Subscribe to her blog or be square!

DOE hiring for highly confidential post of Portfolio Data Analyst

The most interesting aspect of this just-posted DOE job description is the extreme emphasis on confidentiality:

The Portfolio Data Analyst will be privy to confidential information, as either part of the regular assignment or on a project basis, and will participate in decisions related to the development and implementation of Portfolio Planning policies, plans and initiatives. This work includes such areas as enrollment projection development, which determines school budgets; match target development which determines the number of students that may be assigned to a school or program; pre-Kindergarten and Gifted and Talented program planning; class size planning and determinations; special classes, e.g., integrated co-teaching and self contained class, allocations; and planning for grade reconfigurations, relocations, school phase-outs and closures. Decisions regarding school and program changes impact school budgets and staffing requirements. The Data Analyst will have access to confidential information regarding these changes including the number of positions that will be impacted at each school. All of these planning exercises must remain confidential. (emphasis mine.)

Question: why so confidential? What are they trying to hide?

One would think that the DOE was recruiting for the CIA.

As usual, one suspects that the public will be denied this information to make it impossible for them to either contest bad decisions or discern manipulated data.

Indeed, all the data that the DOE bases their decisions on should be made readily available to the public in the first place.

So much for the transparency that the new governance law mandated as as part of the public process.

See also my suggestions for changes to the proposed regulations for school closings, co-locations and changes in school utilization, in which I urged full transparency; the DOE's summary of the public comments, and the very few significant changes that were made.

Arianna Huffington Sells Out on American Education

Click on Huffington Post these days, and you are immediately inundated by the presence of Arianna Huffington. Watch Arianna on MSNBC's "Hardball" or "Countdown"! See Arianna on "Meet the Press" or CNN! Laugh as Arianna makes a (very teeny) funny on "Real Time with Bill Maher"! Read about Arianna's new book! See how Arianna sums up the previous week's news! Who cares about politics or the news when there's Arianna and her opinions to read or watch? It's wall-to-wall, 24/7, all-Arianna-all-the-time, in a self-promotional onslaught that would make Donald Trump blush.

Never one to let her principles, such as they might be (a former rabid conservative, she was an active supporter of Newt Gingrich and a strident caller for Bill Clinton's impeachment until she noticed the talking heads vacuum on the left), stand in the way of self-promotion and making a buck, Arianna has apparently taken the pulse of the current education debate. Seeing where the money and the publicity are, she has now thrown in with the education deform crowd. Her site is now plastered with "Waiting for Superman" ads (Why not scoop up some of that Gates/hedge funder ad money?), but that's hardly the least of it.

On October 4, Arianna herself (or someone writing under her name) announced the addition to Huffpost of HuffPost Education. Even the title of her announcement post inadvertently reveals her short-attention-span commitment to this issue: "Turning a Spotlight on America's Education Moment." Not to worry. When the "moment" has passed and there's no money, notoriety, or ad revenue from it, we can be sure Arianna will maintain her commitment to the cause of American education.

To continue. Arianna informs us that, while "delving into" education for her latest book, Third World America (PLUG!), her "research" led her to a sneak preview of "Waiting for Superman." She knew, in her heart of hearts, that this movie would get America talking about schools. So now that the movie has been released and she has been able to read the direction the public wind was blowing, she has moved boldly forward to make HuffPost part of the national dialog.

And what a dialog it promises to be! For starters, Arianna proudly announced in her posting that the movie's distributor, Paramount Pictures, will be HuffPost Education's "inaugural sponsor." She tells us her chosen editor is Brian Sirgutz, President of the non-profit Causecast ("With Brian's guidance and vision, Causecast is positioned to become a powerful mechanism for social good."). Brian's education expertise apparently arises from his three-plus years feeding off the estate of deceased singer Aaliyah after three earlier years as president of Elementree Records, the promotional company for the bands Korn and the Firm. Then again, perhaps his relevant background for this nationally important issue area comes from his bachelor's degree from NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, involving a "concentration on the impact of technology on human consciousness in modern western societies."

Regardless, Arianna goes blithely on, apparently without any copy editing, to write:

HuffPost Education is designed to be a hub for education news and trends -- and will be home to a spirited, ongoing conversation about what's gone wrong with America's schools, and what needs to be done to fix them. We'll have topical takes from an eclectic mix of stakeholders in the education debate. Among those already lined up to weigh in: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Davis Guggenheim, Bill and Melinda Gates, John Legend, New York City School [sic] Chancellor Joel Klein, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and Geoffrey Canada, whose inspiring work at the Harlem Children Zone [sic] is featured in "Waiting for Superman."

Eclectic indeed! How this "dialog" could possibly be any more one-sided is utterly beyond my imagining. Even if other voices are occasionally permitted a space, the tone and philosophical leanings are nakedly revealed in the line-up HuffPost is promoting, a list that would allow Brian Williams (the diva of NBC's recent "Education Nation") to join "the Donald" in blushing. Still being featured on HuffPost's Front Page, the October 4 posting by John Legend, "Wake Up! We Know How to Fix Our Schools," sets the tone. Mr. Legend establishes his education reform credentials as having written the music for (what else?) "Waiting for Superman" and his connections with Harlem Village Academy (where he has performed as a fund-raiser) and "my friend" Dr. Roland Fryer (he of NYCDOE's experiments on children, "pay for grades" and "give the kids cell phones as academic rewards so they can hear educationally supportive messages from renowned high school graduate LeBron James").

So after -- and despite -- all this, I decided to go ahead and have a look at HuffPost Education. The latest post (as of the morning of 10/10/10) was from NBA basketball players Etan Thomas and Laron Profit. Seems they saw "Waiting for Superman" and got their education about education. Next in line was a social systems scientist named Steven Brant. He also saw "Waiting for Superman" but doesn't think it goes far enough. After him came the celebrated education expert and actor Matthew Bodine. You'll never believe this, but he saw "Waiting for Superman," too! Then there is one Mimi Carter, EVP of SparkLight Communications, who berates education bloggers (Valerie Straus of the Washington Post's "The Answer Sheet," specifically) for spending too much time blaming Obama and not enough time "focusing on real issues."

I scanned down a bit further and saw a posting by another of HuffPost's editors, Jonathan Daniel Harris. He openly states in the first sentence of his article that "I've never been an education activist." That is, of course, until (you'll N-E-V-E-R guess) he saw "Waiting for Superman." He titled his posting, in part, "Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?"

Insulted, disgusted, and overcome by nausea at this point, I simply couldn't go on any further.

The Blind Side

In a recent opinion piece, Brent Staples, editorial writer on education for the NY Times, praised the "Green Dot" chain of charters that began in Los Angeles. Staples writes:

"Green Dot is one of the stars of this [charter] movement. Despite the fact that many of its 17 schools serve desperately poor, minority neighborhoods, its students significantly outperform their traditional school counterparts, on just about every academic measure, including the percentage of children who go on to four-year colleges. "

Green Dot currently operates 18 schools in Los Angeles and one in the Bronx, according to its website. Yet Green Dot has already had to close one of the first five charters it started, due to poor performance. According to the LA Times, the achievement results at another of its schools, Locke high school, have been "lackluster", despite substantially increased funding. "First-year scores remained virtually unchanged and exceptionally low."

Caroline Grannan, a California writer and one of the founders of Parents Across America, analyzed Green Dot's results. Based on the California Department of Education accountability system, Green Dot schools have shown mediocre test scores, and all but one had worse ratings than the supposedly "failing" public schools that Green Dot organized campaigns to take over, led by the group Parent Revolution.

The Parent Revolution is run by Ben Austin, an attorney who works for the city of LA, lives in Beverly Hills, has no school age children, is paid $100,000 as a part-time consultant to Green Dot, and yet regularly claims to be a typical, aggrieved LA parent.

In his opinion piece, Brent Staples also claims that Green Dot charters outperformed traditional public schools in "the percentage of children who go on to four-year colleges." Yet in an August 2010 interview, Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot, admitted that "We only started tracking our graduates during the past year and a half."

I have searched the web far and wide for any independent analysis or study that might provide evidence that Green Dot schools outperform public schools with similar students, and cannot find any. I emailed Mr. Staples, as well as the Green Dot organization, asking for such data, and neither responded. I emailed Green Dot's PR consultant from the Rose Group, who replied that she thought the information was provided somewhere on Green Dot's website, but it is not.

This is not to say that Green Dot schools may not prove themselves over time, but the assertions in this NY Times column represent yet another example of the inflated claims regularly made in the mainstream media for charter schools.

Deborah Kenny, the founder of two charter schools called Harlem Village Academies in New York City has also had her schools praised repeatedly on TV and in magazines. Interviewed by Bill Cosby for a segment that ran on Oprah, Ms. Kenny said her schools' superior results were based on the way they recruited, trained and supported their teachers: "We attract the most talented teachers and then train them over 5 weeks over the summer..."

In a glowing column by Bob Herbert, Kenny again talked about how important it was to "put all of your focus on finding great people...and establish a culture that helps them constantly learn and grow ... to provide a community in the school that supports and respects teachers."

In a more recent piece for the Wall Street Journal, Kenny described how in her schools, teachers know that "the principal has your back in difficult situations, and the operations director works tirelessly to support you."

And yet this wonderful, creative and supportive culture for teachers has some of the highest teacher turnover rates in the city, according to the NY State report cards. One of her charters had annual attrition rates of 60% and 53%, for the two most recent years for which data is available; the other had teacher attrition rates of 71% and 42%
`
This data does not suggest a great working environment for teachers, or an administration which has their "back."

In her Wall Street Journal article, Ms. Kenny also wrote: "When an observer commented that he had never seen middle-school students showing so much kindness to each other.... The reason our kids are nice to each other is because their teachers set a tone of kindness and respect. "

But according to the latest data available, the student suspension rates at one of her schools was at the strikingly high rate of 62 %.

(Steve Koss in this blog has previously cast doubts about the actual achievement levels at the Harlem Village Academies, based upon the sharp decline in the number of students in each grade, which reflects either extremely high student attrition or high numbers of students held back.)

Much of what has been written about Harlem Village Academies, Green Dot and many other charter schools is the product of a massive public relations machine, of which "Waiting for Superman" is just the glossiest example. Too often the mainstream media seems to take the accounts fed to them by this machine as gospel, without investigating as to how much is spin and how much reality.

Some charter schools do a great job; others not. We should study the best, and try to replicate their conditions in our district public schools. The Icahn chain of charter schools, for example, are consistently among the highest performing schools in the Bronx, and cap all class sizes at 18. Meanwhile, class sizes have been rising sharply in most public schools under Mayor Bloomberg's control, and more than one third of Bronx Kindergarten students, for example, are in classes of 25 or more, and nearly two thirds of 8th graders are crammed into classes of 28 or more.

Yet to stereotype charter schools as the shining hope of a dysfunctional public school system is wrong-headed. Charters should be regarded as small-scale experiments to test out new approaches, rather than a rapidly expanding parallel system, facilitating the transfer of public money into private hands. As a society, we should be focusing our efforts, our attention, and our resources on the public schools that the vast majority of our students attend.

As to "Waiting for Superman," I can easily imagine a very different documentary, with an opposing point of view, just as emotionally stirring: a film that interviewed parents of children who have been harshly abused at their charter schools, or have been excluded because of their special needs, like the charters currently being sued by parents in New Orleans.

This film could also interview the parents at some of the charters that have seen dismal results, despite promising otherwise. It could also explore the many charter schools whose operators have misused public funds, or interviewed the many teachers who have fled from these schools because of awful working conditions.

The movie might also feature the accounts of hundreds of bitter public school parents in NYC and elsewhere, whose children have suffered rising class sizes and/or lost their dedicated rooms for art, science, or remediation because of the expansion of better-funded charter schools installed in their buildings.

I could easily imagine such a film, as one-sided in its way as "Waiting for Superman" is in the other direction. But such a film is unlikely to be made or distributed. Why? Because at this point, no one with deep-pockets is likely to finance it, unlike the billionaires, celebrities, and hedge fund mavens who have made charter schools their current hobbyhorse. So instead, we are confronted with a non-stop barrage of propaganda, carelessly disregarding the actual experience of real life parents, students, and teachers.

More on the worst schools in NYC, and their principals

Out of the 33 schools with the lowest Environment scores in 2009-2010, only four of them have new principals this year, according to the DOE website. At least five of their principals were Leadership Academy graduates, from simply checking the web.

Six schools had the absolute worst score: a “0”. One of them is Ross Global charter. An account from Mariama Sanoh, a parent at the school, was posted a few days ago here.

Another school that got a zero is PS 50 in the Bronx. Its principal, Francisco Cruz, was removed from his job last summer, after he was found to have rigged the bids for an afterschool program he had financial interest in.

Tied for seventh worst in the city is MS 571 in Brooklyn. The principal, Santousha Troutman is a graduate of the Leadership Academy, and remains in her job. Eighth worst, tied with four other schools, is PS 11 in the Bronx, run by another Leadership Academy alumni, Elizabeth Hachar. Ms. Hachar appears to be quite a tyrant and has a long history of infuriating parents.

According to a 2008 article in the Highbridge LowDown,

Hachar first made headlines when she fired popular parent teacher coordinator Charles Woods on the final day of term last June. Hachar is in her third year as principal and is a graduate of the New York City Leadership Academy (NYCLA). This June NYCLA was designated the city's official principal training program in NYC's efforts to implement new "Children First" school reforms. A linchpin of the initiative is "empowerment", giving principals "broader discretion over allocating resources, choosing their staffs and creating programming", according to the New York City Department of Education's website.

Problems began before Wood's dismissal, says Nelson Mar, senior staff attorney and education law specialist at Legal Services NYC-Bronx, a civil legal service for low income individuals. On May 2nd of this year, Mar's firm, along with a coalition of community activists, teachers and staff, filed a complaint with school superintendent Dolores Desposito.

Among the allegations was a claim that Hachar's mandate to lock bathrooms led some children to soil themselves. "One mother told me her daughter had to be hospitalized because of an obstruction in her bowel," said Mar. On Sept. 10th at the first PTA meeting of the 2008 school year, the principal addressed the bathroom issue, said attendee Theodore Garcia, first vice president of the Community Education Council for the district. Hachar "stated that 'all the teachers in the building have keys to the bathrooms to let students in'", said Garcia, but did not explain why they were locked at all. Hachar did not respond to multiple attempt s to contact her, and ordered the removal of a reporter from the September 10th PTA meeting by six police officers…. Hachar is currently under investigation because of those allegations, said Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the DOE. Hachar is credited with raising test scores. English proficiency has nearly doubled according to data from New York State School Report Cards, the government's yearly schools assessment….

She's made other changes as well. According to the community organizer, over 30 teachers from the school's full-time teaching staff of 59 have left or been fired in the time she's held office.

Yet perhaps because of her ability to keep test scores up, Hachar remains in her post.

Tied with the above school at no. 9 was the Academy of Business and Community Development. Last year, the principal and founder of the school was Clyde Cole, yet another graduate of the Leadership Academy, who received a bonus of $7,000 from the DOE in 2008-9. Here is an excerpt on his alumni page at NYU’s Steinhardt School:

After graduating from NYU Clyde joined the Aspiring Principals’ Program at the New York City Leadership Academy because he’d be guaranteed a principal position within one year. A few months into the program the Department of Education’s Office of New Schools presented the group with the possibilities and the process of opening a new school in New York City. As per Department of Education requirements, Clyde assembled a Planning Team, which included Urban Assembly, a nonprofit organization that has been founding schools since 1997, a fellow Aspiring Principal, a parent, a high school senior, three middle school principals, his former high school basketball coach, and two teachers, one of whom was once Clyde’s student.

Mr. Cole is gone now, replaced with Simone Mcintosh.

Also tied at 9^th worst last year was PS 52 in Staten Island, whose principal was Evelyn Mastroianni. Ms. Mastroianni made headlines last year when she threatened to suspend a 9 year old student who was holding a 2- inch plastic Lego gun. She only relented when the parents threatened to sue. The school has a new principal this year, Jane McCord.

The parents at Muscota, at 15^th worst, managed to rid themselves of their much-despised principal Tomasz Graski, another Leadership Academy alum, but now he has been installed instead at ms45/ in East Harlem.

The 20^th worst school, according to the surveys, was PS 6 in the Bronx, whose principal is Darlene Mcwhales. That school was afflicted with mold in the portable classrooms last year, and yet the DOE resisted allowing students into classrooms in the main building even though there was apparently room for them. Here is a comment from a teacher on the Yournabe website about Ms. Mcwhales:

I worked in a portable classroom for many years. In one of the classrooms the mold was so bad there was a big gaping hole in the wall. When principal, Darlene Mcwhales at PS 6 saw the hole she responded to the teacher, "place a bookshelf in front of the hole so parents won't complain." I was infuriated with her response, so I contacted every possible agency to respond to the serious mold problems. Mrs. Mcwhales even went as far as firing one of the teachers she believed contacted DOSH.”

Gregory Hodge is the well-known principal of Frederick Douglass Academy, which has the 25^th lowest score for environment in the city. Mr. Hodge is famous for his “no excuses” attitude to teachers and students;

“In my final interview with the [teaching] candidate, I lay down the law,” says Hodge. “As quickly as you’re hired, you can be fired. If you don’t perform—

you’re gone.” At this point Hodge says certain candidates get squeamish and ask how they will be evaluated. “How will you evaluate your students? Through test scores,” Hodge replies. “That’s how I’ll evaluate you—through their test scores.”

A former teacher describes the harrowing environment at the school in an article in the Indypendent last month:

The worst part of working at FDA was the principal, whose management style was described by the district United Federation of Teachers representative as “abrasive.” In my experience, shouting was the norm, often peppered with derogatory words and phrases. Neither children nor teachers were spared the kind of verbal abuse one expects from a drill sergeant, not a school principal. But seeing most of my colleagues cowed or resigned to it, I rolled along, until he threatened me one day — saying, “teachers are gonna get their throats cut” — shortly after I and a couple other teachers had called the city and the state to complain about the lack of a certified special education teacher for the sixth grade.

FDA’s not the grittiest school in the city or the country, but its shortcomings highlight many of the problems with urban education. Social services and counseling are almost nonexistent. But as I began to advocate further for certain students, I directly exposed myself to the potential loss of my livelihood. But even our calls didn’t solve the special ed problem. Instead, the sixth-graders got a certified teacher at the expense of another class.

This was only the most obvious example of our principal not doing his job. As the year went on I began to compile documentation of harassment. I first called our district superintendent, whose secretary helpfully suggested I look for a job at another school. I also called the DOE ’s office of special investigations and was told that unless children were being physically harmed at the school, that office was unlikely to investigate any further than calling the school principal. The person I spoke with in the office of special investigations helpfully added that it might “come back on me” if I decided to file a complaint.

Mark Clarke, principal of the Bronx Mathematics Preparatory School, 23^rd on the list, strangely took on the job as the chair of East NY Prep charter’s board, right before it was closed down by SUNY last year, because of alleged mismanagement, the principal’s self-dealing, and the pushing out of students with low test scores. According to Gotham Schools, Mr. Clarke said the school had not forced students to leave, but that “they left on their own,”

25^th worst school in the city was E. Flatbush Community Research School, run by David Manning, who is another Leadership Academy grad and received a bonus from the DOE in the fall of 2009.

The 27^th worst school last year was PS 24 in the Bronx, led by Donna Connelly, known for turning down a grant for two years of music appreciation for the students at her school, apparently because “there was no educational value to it.”

Waiting for Katrina

October 7, 2010 (GBN News): In a bold political move apparently orchestrated by the Obama administration, Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell has been tapped to replace Michelle Rhee as Chancellor of the Washington, DC school system. The appointment will be effective immediately. According to administration sources, the President persuaded lame duck Mayor Adrian Fenty to offer the post to Ms. O’Donnell – a move which at once removes a serious Tea Party threat to the Democratic senate seat in Delaware, and introduces a powerful new force to build on Chancellor Rhee’s reforms of the DC schools.

Ms. O’Donnell has been a controversial figure in the Delaware senate race, having admitted to engaging in witchcraft. But that could be a plus in her new job, says J. Fredrick Runson, professor of Parapolitical Science at Manhattan University. “Michelle Rhee just acted like a witch; O’Donnell may actually be one," Professor Runson told GBN News. "She can put a curse on the teachers union, and maybe even make the entire school system disappear with the sweep of a wand. Why, with her skills, she can be the Katrina that Arne Duncan has been waiting for!”

Under questioning by reporters, Mayor Fenty admitted that Ms. O’Donnell is probably not an actual witch. But, he said, “She did dabble in it. And you have to admit, that’s at least as much experience in witchcraft as Michelle had in education.”

The worst schools in NYC?

The only information out of the school progress reports that I would trust is the list of schools that got an “F” for environment, based predominantly on extremely low ratings from parents and teachers on the learning environment surveys, and in the case of middle and high schools, from students as well.

Here is a chart of the schools that received the lowest scores and an “F” for environment.

All of these schools should get intensive intervention from DOE, and probably a new principal, though it’s likely they won’t, because all DOE really cares about is test scores.

And since only 15% of the overall school grade comes from the environment score (10% from survey results, and 5% from attendance) most of these schools got progress report grades of B or C. (Here is more info on these surveys, including citywide results.)

There are schools on the list in Districts 3, 6-13, 16-19, 23-24, 28-29, 31, 75 and 85 (charters) The districts that had the most of these schools were D7, D29 and D31 (three in each), D12 (four), and D75 (five) .

Though I am aware of how survey results can be skewed because some principals put pressure on parents and teachers to give positive marks to the school or otherwise DOE will close the school down, these are schools in which these pressures didn’t work, and parents and teachers are extremely unhappy.

Some of the schools on this list are I know from other sources have had extremely problematic principals. For example, Muscota in Washington Heights, where parents and teachers were very active protesting the actions of their principal last year. (See here and here.)

And Ross Global Charter had the lowest environment score of all; see this account from Mariama Sanoh, a parent at the school.

The Muscota parents were very media savvy and managed to get rid of their principal, Tomasz Grabski, after lots of protests, but then DOE then put him in charge of M.S. 45/S.T.A.R.S. Prep Academy in D4 this year.

If anyone has anything good or bad to say about these schools or their principals, please leave a comment!

Sign our petition against any more charters that will take space from our public schools!

In NYC, our public schools are increasingly overcrowded, a crisis made worse by the insistence of the NYC Department of Education to continue placing charter schools in our district school buildings. This has led to class size increases, the loss of art rooms, science labs, libraries, and preK programs, as well as special needs children receiving their services in hallways and in closets in our district schools.

NY charter authorizers will be voting in the next few weeks on several charter schools, whose founders have stated that they intend to be located inside our already overcrowded public schools.

Please sign our petition to urge the the SUNY board of trustees, the State Education Department, and the Board of Regents, along with their advisers, not to approve any more charter schools in NYC, unless they have a plan to be located in their own space, separate from our existing infrastructure.

The petition is here, and when you sign it, it automatically sends an email to the above decisionmakers. Please also feel free to adapt the message however you like. Thanks!